Review of X+Y (2014) by Sharon F — 04 Nov 2015

There's a lot of things to like about this movie, but a few I had real issues with. Spoilers ahead.

1. How did the kid get to be this old with his mom apparently having so little understanding of what autism is and how to teach the kid how to engage in society? Did she have no support groups or anything of her own?

2. My biggest issue with this movie is how they treated women. Though there's three major female characters, it doesn't pass the Bechdel test. We meet two other young women in the competition -- one is the niece of one of the teachers and is suspected of being in on that basis alone, and whose primary interest appears to be the protagonist. The other, who is also vying for his attention (right, out of all these hundreds of guys, these two girls go after the autistic one), ends up sabotaging the relationship between the other girl and the protagonist, and has no repercussions. Can't we have a single female character who actually is there for the competition?

3. In "A Beautiful Mind," we're shown that love can triumph over mental illness; now that he has a girlfriend, the protagonist gets over a whole lot of the autistic issues he's had all his life.

It's pretty, it's heartwarming, but it does both autistics and particularly smart girls a disservice.